... Over a period of four years (2016–2019), we quantify the benefits accrued to the uptake of SRI among smallholder farmers in Oluch irrigation scheme western Kenya. Our comparisons are in reference to a baseline study conducted prior to the full-scale promotion of SRI in the study area. Our study findings reveal that the uptake of specific SRI practices increased by at least 30–80%, and acreage under rice farming increased by 50%. Although SRI required more production costs per acre (as much as 63% increase), SRI had at least 28.6% higher return per shilling invested. Our findings underscore previous results in the literature that SRI is associated with not only productivity but also economic benefits justifying the need for scaling especially among smallholder farmers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra7-7eAtQEM Here's the story of Mathew, one of the first System of Rice Intensification (SRI) farmers in Kenya. He has been successfully farming rice for 20 years in Mwea.
This paper examined the factors influencing rice productivity in Kenya's Mwea Irrigation Scheme using the System of rice intensification (SRI) and conventional flooding (CF). Analysis of 364 farmer interviews with an Endogenous Switching regression Model (ESRM) revealed that factors such as household size, access to extension services, involvement in off-farm work, distance from the canal, farm size, labour use, access to credit services and years spent in rice farming were significant in explaining variations in rice productivity. The gross margin analysis showed that the returns of SRI outweigh the returns of CF, thus making SRI more profitable than CF.
The National Irrigation Board in Kenya is promoting a rice production system (SRI) to improve food security. The programme combines using certified seeds and intensive water management with high levels of farmer sensitization.
The study assesses the performance of existing conventional paddy irrigation system compared to SRI technology in terms of efficient water use and rice yield and develops alternative irrigation schedules for better rice production grown under limited water supply in surface irrigation. The results were used as inputs to the CROPWAT irrigation management model, which can estimate crop water requirements and net irrigation requirement.
Irrigation Water Use (IWU) in the SRI treatments was 2316.7 m3/ha compared to 2966.7 m3/ha in the conventional practice translating to a saving of 21.9%. SRI system demonstrated significantly higher water productivity (0.5 kg/m3) compared to conventional system with 0.3 kg/m3. SRI increased Water Productivity (WP) by 67% while Land Productivity (LP) increased by 59.5%. The study concludes that SRI is capable of producing considerably higher rice yields and substantial saving on irrigation water use as compared to the conventional flooded system. Adapting irrigation scheduling using CROPWAT for SRI will produce a better water management system, which also saves irrigation water.
Tanzanians who participated in the System of Rice Intensification training shared their stories of how a new rice growing system improved their lives. A bottom-up and more inclusive approach led to a successful outcome. Tanzania is one of the participating countries in the “Partnership for Sustainable Rice Systems Development in Sub-Saharan Africa” project within the framework of South-South Cooperation. Tanzania has achieved a tremendous impact on farmers in five irrigation schemes’ regional districts. Besides Tanzania, the project supported Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea Conakry, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda.
As Monica Awino spreads her rice in the sun to dry at her Nyang’ande home in Nyando, she expects a windfall. For over two decades, Ms Awino toiled and prayed for a better harvest in vain.
The past two seasons have seen her prayers shift from better harvest to reliable market, courtesy of a new technology dubbed system for rice intensification (SRI). The system, borrowed from Mwea Irrigation Scheme, involves intensive utilisation of water, where farmers have equal access to the limited commodity for a particular number of days, then they give it to other farmers, and the cycle continues. This has seen the likes of Awino embrace team work right from land preparation, planting, harvesting and marketing.
Presentation by Bancy Mati at the Workshop to Enhance Cooperation and Sharing among SRI National Networks in Asia, held at the Leverage Business Hotel, Skudai, Malaysia. October 18-19, 2018.
SRI-Rice's insight:
Bancy Mati presented the newly-forming SRI Africa Network at this October event in Malaysia geared towards forming a regional Asia network.
. In this work, the researcher sought to understand the barriers and enablers to the adoption of the System of Rice intensification in Mwea irrigation scheme (MIS) in Kenya. The findings show that most barriers to the uptake of SRI in MIS occur during the dissemination of SRI. Further critical barriers to the uptake of SRI in MIS were identified as follows: lack of formal SRI training, high costs of rice production, failure to involve key stakeholder institutions such as SACCOs while marketing SRI and farmer's age. The study also depicted that most barriers to SRI adoption were intertwined. Furthermore, enablers to the uptake of SRI in MIS are tied to the benefits of SRI pre-empted by lead farmers. This correlation implies that the benefits of SRI are key motivators for SRI adoption. Other enablers include training. However, informal training on SRI through social networks which play a crucial role at disseminating climate adaptation activities amongst small scale farmers, is marked with a lot of inconsistencies which makes it a barrier for SRI uptake. In this regard, we advise that SRI trainers clearly highlight the activities involved in SRI and their resultant benefits during initial SRI information dissemination.
SRI-Rice's insight:
A mini-thesis by Mercy Njeri Gicheruin for the degree of Master of Science (Climate Change and Development) in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town.
The soft-spoken Mrs. Lonah Anyango Okumu is an uncelebrated heroine in her own right. This mother of seven children is a widow who has overcome many odds to bring up and educate her family single-handedly as well as become a leading champion of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), in western Kenya.
About 500 million women worldwide are involved in rice production. Conventional rice production harms women in a number of ways. SRI helps to improve rice production and to reduce this harm to women. SRI4Women produces communications material to share information with women at a grassroots level and to raise awareness at a policy level.
SRI-Rice's insight:
As its first project, SRI4Women will document rice-growing practices in India, Kenya and Cambodia, where Oxfam America raises awareness about SRI among rice farmers. Over the next year, SRI4Women will produce video material about the difficulties faced by conventional women rice farmers and, in collaboration with women SRI farmers in these countries, look at how SRI can help to address those difficulties at the different stages of rice production.
After a lull in activities around SRI (Systems of Rice Intensification), two new SRI projects were launched recently in Mwea involving applied research, comprising within it two-sub-projects; (i) Scientific evaluation of labour demands under SRI, and (ii) Scientific assessment of impacts of SRI on weeds.
SRI-Rice's insight:
Projects are implemented as a collaboration between Water Research and Resource Center at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology-JKUAT and MIAD-NIB and are supported by the African Institute for Capacity and Development (AICAD)
Achieving Food Security while using water and land resources in a sustainable manner is a major challenge to any country. Agriculture’s success is therefore hinged on effectively using innovation to increase productivity and ensure profitability while managing natural resources. With this in mind, ARIFU, an educational technology company in conjunction with JKUAT’s Prof. Bancy Mati came up with a digital System of Rice Intensification (SRI) training app for rice farmers in Kenya. The app is an important source of information for the farmers on practices towards an increase in rice water productivity.
The ARIFU platform is an interactive chatbot that offers agronomic advice and financial skills training to farmers through mobile phones, giving them access to much-needed information. “This app will be accessible to anyone with a mobile phone and will be important in providing up-to-date information to farmers on the new and improved farming practices,” said Prof. Mati who also Chairperson of the Association of Irrigation Acceleration Platform (AIAP).
SRI-Rice's insight:
A longer account of the digital app, with insights on its success, can be found in Prof. Mati's extended post on the SRI-Rice website: tinyurl.com/3t97632c.
SRI, as a green methodology, holds promise for food security, water savings, health and environmental benefits and improved productivity of rice in Africa. Over the past decade there has been a steady rise in adoption of SRI in five irrigation schemes in Kenya: Mwea, Ahero, Budalangi, West Kano and South West Kano. By December 2017, over 10,000 rice farmers had adopted SRI in the five schemes. The high adoption was driven by positive results. In Kenya, research has shown SRI increases rice yields by between 20% -100% depending on variety, with water savings of 25%-33%. The effects of SRI on mosquito breeding showed that all mosquito larvae died in paddies under SRI, while they remained alive and multiplied in conventional flooded paddies, indicating the methodology holds promise for reducing malaria prevalence. Furthermore, SRI produces a harder, better grain which has superior qualities on milling and marketing.
Food security in Kenya is at stake due to decline in farm productivity with an ever-increasing population which is worsened by global warming. Improvement of agricultural productivity may not be realized soon as rice farmers currently uses traditional method of flooding rice which has been reported to result in low rice yields. System of Rice intensification (SRI) provides an opportunity improve rice yields. This study was undertaken in Ahero Irrigation Scheme to compare yield production of conventional and SRI rice production for IR 2793-80-1 cultivar. SRI experiments recorded higher number of effective tillers with experiment having a spacing of 20cm by 20cm and transplanted at 8-11 days, which gave 321 per m2 as compared to 226 effective tillers/m2. Seed yield/plant was highly significant in SRI (39.61 g) as compared to a traditional paddy system (17.32 g). Transplanting rice seedling at the age of 8 to 11 days and at 20cm by 20cm spacing recorded highest seed yield/ha of 4.7 t/ha as compared to traditional flooding which recorded 2.7 t/ha. These results suggest that planting young rice seedlings can improve grain yield, which is likely due to an increase in the of tillers per square meters, plant height and better plant rooting ability.
The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) was introduced in the Mwea irrigation scheme in Kenya in 2009. After introduction and testing of various weeders there, foundries were asked to make the most effective weeders and farmers were encouraged to use them.
It is now over 10 years since SRI was introduced in Kenya. As SRI adoption has spread, the demand for weeders has grown, and individual farmers started ordering for weeders directly from the foundries. Today, rotary weeding is the preferred mode for weeding in Mwea, Ahero and West Kano irrigation schemes. The weeders are sold for between 20 to 30 USD and farmers are able to buy locally-made weeders without project support. It is a win-win value-chain development, creating employment opportunities and reducing the drudgery of labour in paddy rice production.
Bancy Mati, Professor at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, presented a talk on "Improving Productivity of Rice under Water Scarcity in Africa: The Case for the System of Rice Intensification" on June 26, 2019, at the International Rice Development Conference and Seminar on China-Africa Development, in Changsha, China
SRI-Rice's insight:
See also the write-up on the trip that Bancy Mati (Kenya) and Pascal Gbenou (Benin) made to represent Africa (and SRI) at this conference on China-Africa Rice Development: https://tinyurl.com/y4sy4m9l
The most notable [SRI benefits] are savings on water use and increase in yield. Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) has also paved way for mechanical weed control in paddy fields. One of the major constraints to adoption of SRI is the perceived increased labour input due to the careful transplanting and frequent weed control. This paper evaluates the effect of mechanization on labour input in SRI in comparison to the less mechanized farmer practice. In attempt to reduce drudgery in transplanting under SRI, the drum seeder was used to establish the rice crop by direct seeding. This was then followed by using SRI practices i.e. AWD and mechanical weeding. Direct seeding using a drum seeder was compared to transplanting in both SRI and the common farmer practice. Hand weeding was also evaluated and compared to mechanical weeding. Labour input cost was also compared to the income accrued from the yields. From the study, it was noted that direct seeding using the drum seeder reduced labour input by 97% compared to transplanting. This was possible in that in direct seeding, and there was no nursery preparation and management as in transplanting. The use of a mechanical weeder reduced labour input by 28.3% in relation to hand weeding. Labour input cost for SRI was cheaper (Kshs. 124,080 per hectare) compared to the common farmer practice (Kshs. 139,117.50 per hectare). There was more yield from the SRI practice (2.75 Ton/ha) compared to the common farmer practice (1.88 Ton/ha).
TV news report about SRI from KTN News in Kenya. Find our more about the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in Kenya and meet some of the people who are at the forefront of research, spread and adoption of SRI there.
Mr Benedict Owila, a NIB officer in charge of Ahero Research Station said they have been working to reduce the cost of inputs so that local produce can compete favourably in the market. In 2015, they introduced a new rice-growing technology known as System of Rice Intensification (SRI), which halves costs while doubling production. “We introduce the technology in phases. The good produce they have registered this season is partly linked to the SRI which involves using less water, few seeds and other planting procedures in order to maximise yields,” the researcher told Nation in his office. Ms Juliana Anyona, who has tried the technology said it increased yields from the usual 30 bags per acre to 40. “We appreciate new technologies by the government to improve our production. But we are asking for a better market,” said Ms Anyona.
A new method of rice farming known as rice intensification is taking root in various rice growing areas in Kenya. [Click on the video to listen to the show about SRI on Kenya's Citizen TV channel.]
Presenter: Jean Njiru Title: Some observations on introduction and rapid growth of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) among smallholder farmers in Kenya …
On the verge of abandoning Kenya’s third most popular staple, however, Francis heard of a new technology that could reverse his dwindling fortunes. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI), introduced for the first time at the neighbouring Ahero Irrigation Scheme in 2011, had forayed into West Kano, raising hope for Francis and his contemporaries.
"Time seems to be up for paddy rice farming as researchers unveil a new method of growing the important cereal. In Ahero and West Kano irrigation schemes, farmers are currently learning a new method of rice farming called Systems of Rice Intensification (SRI), introduced by the National Irrigation Board (NIB) in partnership with Ag SRI, an organisation from India."
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M.A. Ouma,. L.. Ouma, J.M. Ombati, and C.A. Onyango. 2024. A cost benefits analysis of the adoption of system of rice intensification: Evidence from smallholder rice farmers within an innovation platform in Oluch irrigation scheme, Kenya. PLoS ONE 19(1): e0290759. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0290759